Description
Object description
British NCO served as wireless operator with Force 136, Special Operations Executive in Ceylon, 11/1944-12/1945; served with Allied Military Forces Paramilitary Organisation in Singapore, Malaya and Thailand, 12/1945-8/1946; served as observer with British Millitary Mission, Cambodia in Battambang, Cambodia, 8/1946-12/1946
Content description
REEL 1 Aspects of period as wireless operator with Special Operations Executive in GB, 6/1944-9/1944: initial impressions on arrival at training centre, STS 54a Fawley Court in Henley-on-Thames, 6/1944; requirement to raise transmitting speed; introduction of Q Codes; reasons for removal of recruits from course; awaiting overseas posting in London, 9/1944 including German V1 Flying Bomb attacks. Aspects of voyage aboard HMT Ranchi from GB to India, 10/1944-11/1944: conditions on board; seasickness and threat of German submarines; impressions of Suez Canal area; heat of Red Sea; disembarkation in Bombay, India, 11/1944. Aspects of journey from India to Ceylon, 11/1944: move into transit camp; rations aboard HMT Ranchi; food disposal as security breach; train journey to Meerut.
REEL 2 Continues: train journey to southern India and sea crossing to Ceylon. Recollections of period as wireless operator with Force 136, Special Operations Executive in Ceylon, 11/1944-12/1944: arrival at camp outside Colombo, 11/1944; code names of agents worked with; problems receiving signals from agents in field; security restrictions; picking up message from John Davies and Richard Broome in Malaya; distances he operated from Ceylon; setting up radio link from Minneriya Airfield in central Ceylon, 5/1945; living conditions; nature of messages concerning drops of agents and supplies across South East Asia; degree of knowledge of conditions in liberated prisoner of war camps; period running signals station down, Colombo, 9/1945-12/1945. Aspects of period as wireless operator with Allied Military Forces Paramilitary Organisation in Singapore, Malaya 12/1945-4/1946: move to Singapore; disbandment of Special Operations Executive and renaming unit as Allied Military Forces Paramilitary Organisation; voyage to Bangkok, Thailand, 4/1946.
REEL 3 Continues: Recollections of period as wireless operator with Allied Military Forces Paramilitary Organisation in Thailand, 4/1946-8/1946: arrival in Bangkok. 4/1946; setting up signals office in Bangkok University; journey to Singora, 4/1946; drinking cocktail 'Tiger's Milk'; discovery of Dutch women's internment camp en route to Kra Isthmus, 6/1946; impressions of Haadyai; presence of Japanese soldiers hiding on Malay-Thailand border; meeting new commanding officer Major Beaumont-Nesbitt on arrival at Singora; anti-British activity in south Thailand; woman's false story of existence of anti-British army; selling Japanese supply dump by tender at Haadyai; accepting Japanese surrender from camp in Thailand, 1946; requirement for Japanese prisoners of war to bow; question of nature of anti-British elements in Singora; discovery of bones of executed Royal Air Force airmen exhumed by war crimes personnel; raids on cookhouse by troupe of monkeys; visit to Taiping; impressions of Major Beaumont-Nesbitt.
REEL 4 Continues: journey from Bangkok to Cambodia, 8/1946. Recollections of period as observer with British Military Mission, Cambodia in Battambang, Cambodia, 8/1946-12/1946: arrival at Battambang; Thai-French dispute of Battambang province; Vichy-Gaullist French rivalries; contact with American missionary and his family; story of re-establishing contact with American missionary's family during 1980s; death threat towards missionaries by Khmer Rouge; attitude of local people towards French; visit to Phnom Penh; composition of British Military Mission, Cambodia; destruction of bridges by insurgents; return to Bangkok,Thailand; Thai agreement to hand Battambang province back to French.
REEL 5 Continues: reaction to French Supermarine Spitfire strafing; end of British Military Mission, Cambodia; escorting Japanese war criminals to Singapore, Malaya; contracting peritonitis in Singapore, Malaya; voyage from Singapore, Malaya to GB aboard HMHS Oxfordshire; anti-French sentiments in Cambodia; capture of missionary by Izrak gang; role of British Miltary Mission, Cambodia.